‘Sandbox’, the initiative of Colombia and Netflix for vulnerable young people to be trained in the audiovisual industry

The Colombian Ministry of Culture announced this Thursday a new program, in collaboration with Netflix and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which will help and train vulnerable Colombian youth and will give them opportunities in the audiovisual industry.

In the framework of the celebration of International Film Festival of Cartagena de Indias (FICCI), which is held in that Caribbean city between March 16 and 21the Minister of Culture, Angélica Mayolo, presented the program Sandboxing.

The objective of this initiative is “train young people from regions of the country where it is not so common for these types of projects to be carried out”. It is “one of the best ways to create new opportunities for new generations,” said the minister.

The project will have impact in six regions of Colombiawhich are the departments of Chocó, San Andrés, Sucre, Caquetá and Cauca, and also Bogotá.

The program will bring the Colombian industry closer to some 1,500 young people at risk of vulnerability in some of the most remote territories and with higher rates of inequality, and will focus on women, the Afro-descendant and indigenous population and in the LGTBI + collective.

Young people will participate in training programs in different skills, such as makeup or costume assistance, in order that “they be protagonists of this great boom that we have in Colombia in audiovisual production” and that “all regions of the country can have the human capital to develop audiovisual productions”, the minister explained in statements to Efe.

Of these, 100 will go to the last phase of “action and wheel” that will allow them to participate in local productions and in some Netflix productionsin addition to having an accompaniment of leaders of the audiovisual industry.

At the launch of the initiative, Maryoli Ceballosa Colombian indigenous filmmakercelebrated that “paths have been opened from the territories, but the training spaces have to be further strengthened”, since in the indigenous communities “processes are taking place from the communities’ own sense of telling what happens”.

“Sandbox” will additionally search for “representation in front of and behind the screen, betting on the creative talent of Colombia”, training “new talents because there are no longer enough people for all the audiovisual demand” that there is in Colombia, specified, for his part, the Director of Audiovisual, Cinema and Interactive Media of the Ministry of Culture, Jaime Tenorio.